


if only

by carryonstarkid



Category: Gallagher Girls Series - Ally Carter
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24755083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carryonstarkid/pseuds/carryonstarkid
Summary: Requested Anonymously: "How about Abby/Joe where Matt and Rachel set them up on a blind date and they end up arguing the whole time?"
Relationships: Abigail Cameron/Joseph "Joe" Solomon
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	if only

The restaurant’s nice. All the restaurants in DC are, but whoever this guy is, he’s got an eye for the _finer_ parts of fine dining. It’s the kind of place with a terrace out back, little white lights twinkling from the planks of crisscrossed wood and the vines that grow around them. From her seat in the sky, she can see the Capitol Building and she’s got a perfect view of the world’s worst traffic. The headlights almost look like stars from up here and she knows that it’s a more spectacular light show than any she might find in the city’s night.

She’s already got at thing for this guy, whoever he may be. Private terrace, gourmet dinner, and chilled white wine waiting for her when she arrives. He knows how to treat a lady, that much is for sure, and as she takes a sip from her gold-rimmed glass, she starts to think that maybe this night won't be as much of a disaster as she had planned.

Because it’s not like it was _her_ idea to go out. It had been Rachel’s constant nagging that had convinced her to come. She had talked to some friends who had talked to their friends about setting up a blind date for this Mystery Man, and Abby had been the nearest single woman available. Which was _fine_. It was how she liked things. If she had things her way, Abby would have taken that mission assignment to Puerto Rico—and she’d probably have _three_ guys hanging on her every word tonight instead of just the one.

Then again, those three guys would all be gone before dawn, and Abby can’t deny that having someone who stays around longer than three hours might not be such a terrible thing.

So she’s just a little bit glad that Rachel had been so persistent. She’s just a little bit happy with her big sister as she theorizes and hypothesizes about the terrace-reserving, white-wine-buying Mystery Man.

But then she sees _him_ , and everything is _ruined_.

When he steps out onto the terrace, he pieces the puzzle together in an instant. He’s good at that—at the little things. At putting a story together with the slightest details. Joe Solomon notices things, so maybe that’s why Abby’s confused as to why it takes him so long to say, “ _No_.”

And then she smiles. “We’ve been duped, my friend.” 

Abby grabs the neck of the bottle and the ice clatters as she pulls it from the bucket. Joe’s glass is identical to hers, tall and thin, so she flips it and starts to pour. “Have a seat,” she says. “Might as well get your money’s worth.”

“I even sprung for the expensive wine,” he tells her, shaking his head as he pulls out the silk-covered chair and plops down.

Abby nods. “I can see that. You probably ordered the Chef’s Special, too?”

“With a dessert,” Joe confirms and Abby’s got to laugh.

“Joe Solomon,” she says, setting the bottle back down. It’s the first time she’s felt at ease all day, so she leans back and holds her own glass out to him. “You sure do know how to treat a lady.”

He brings his glass to hers, sending the softest chime through the air, and then he drinks, far too quickly considering just how much money he had spent on the bottle. “This dinner costs as much as a month’s rent,” he says, looking across the tablecloth as if he could turn everything into plastic with a single, magical blink. “And I’m spending it all on Abby Cameron.”

“That’s nothing,” she says. “I waxed for Joe Solomon.”

“Waxing your legs isn’t nearly as bad as—”

She raises her eyebrows at him, and Joe’s words come to an abrupt and uncharacteristically flustered stop.

“Oh.”

She laughs. “Yeah, _oh_. I mean, just look at me—I look _great,_ Joe.”

“You do look pretty great tonight,” he says, taking another sip.

“Thank you,” she says, because it doesn’t mean anything coming from him. Or, at least, it shouldn’t. “You clean up pretty well yourself.”

He’s underdressed for the venue, certainly, but there’s something undeniably charming about it. Something refreshingly simple. The men who usually dine at this particular restaurant all wear three—piece suits and ties that are either bold blue or bright red. They’re the type of people who use fifty dollar bills as bookmarks and who think that ten bucks is chump change.

Joe’s just got this button down, a black tie to match his black shirt and black slacks. It’s like he and Matt had spent hours staring into their closet of their rundown, DC apartment and didn’t know which colors went with which, so they decided that all black was their best bet.

They hadn’t been wrong.

“Did Rachel put you up to this?” he asked, pulling the knot loose and unbuttoning his top button.

Abby nods and, when she’s done admiring the way his neck bumps as it meets his collarbone, she says, “Yeah, and Matt?”

“Yep,” Joe says. “We'e just been played by the two greatest spies we know.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

“You’ll drink to anything.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing you splurged on the good stuff, isn’t it?”

She pours herself another glass and reaches out to top his glass off, but he puts his hand out and Abby’s not all that surprised. Joe doesn’t drink much. Joe never has. It makes Abby wonder what he’s hiding under all of that sobriety. “Did they really think this would work?” she asks instead.

“They’re hopeless romantics,” Joe answers, and the waiters are already bringing their food out. Abby can’t help but see his meticulous planning of the evening as charming, even if it had, technically, been meant for another girl. “And we’re they’re best friends. They can’t help themselves.”

“We told them it wouldn’t work,” she reminds him, gentle but stern. “They should’ve taken our word for it. Rachel can trust me with a bomb in Istanbul, but she can’t trust me with my own love life?”

He rolls his sleeves up and the woman in Abby notices it as much as the spy does. “Matt’s the same way,” he says. “They just… they don’t get it.”

“Tell me about it,” Abby moans, partially because she relates, but mostly because this filet mignon is to _die_ for. She hasn’t had food this good since her school days. “They think they’re so perfect with their _romance_ and their _good sex_ and their… their…”

“Love?” he supplies.

If he notices when her fingers fumble over her knife, then he doesn’t say anything. “Yeah,” she says. “Their goddamn love.”

Because that’s what it is, really. Rachel and Matt are kind of perfect for each other, so Joe and Abby didn’t really stand a chance. A shadow trying to live in the sun. How could a crush as messy as the one between Joe and Abby ever survive when it was always being compared to the sheer force that was Rachel and Matt?

It doesn’t. That’s the answer. It doesn’t survive.

They’re both thinking it, but neither of them dare say it out loud. They just spend their evening eating their expensive dinners and drinking their expensive wine, trying to figure out how in the hell their best friends can possibly be so made for each other.

And how in the hell they can possibly be so… not.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance I’ll get a little help with the bill?” he asks when they finish their single dessert together.

“Making me pay on the first date, Joe?” she says, as tsk waiting on her tongue. “You were doing so well, too.”

“So this is an official date, then?” he says, and she knows he’s teasing. Maybe. Probably. He’s probably teasing.

So she laughs, as one does when jokes are made, and she pulls her wallet from her purse. “Sure,” she says. “My first and probably only date with my sister’s boyfriend’s best friend.”

“Is that what I am to you?” he says, and the tease is even less this time. “Sister’s boyfriend’s best friend?”

And maybe it’s just the lights hanging above their heads or maybe a stars finally made it through the DC smog, but Abby swears she sees a twinkle in those green eyes of his. “No,” she makes herself say, and it’s easier than she expected. “No, that’s not all you are to me.”

“Then what am I?”

“Joe,” she says, definitely. “You’re Joe.”

Neither of them seem to know what that’s supposed to mean, exactly, but neither of them seem to care either, because it’s _something_. Maybe it’s not Rachel and Matt, but it doesn’t really have to be. This is just Joe and Abby. Nothing more, and nothing less.

“I’ll pay for the wine,” she says, grabbing the neck of the bottle and standing. “Because I fully intend on bringing it home with me.”

Joe’s up too, throwing cash on the table like he didn’t have to make three different stops at three different ATMs just to get it. The two of them are alone on that terrace when he asks, “Anything else you want to bring home?”

He doesn't know what he's just said. Abby can feel the wine hit her stomach, bubbles buzzing all the way up past her throat. He’s watching her, waiting for the answer, but the poor schmuck still thinks that they’re talking about the dinner.

So she grabs that thin black tie of his and pulls him in closer and that clues international super spy Joe Solomon in on what he’s really just said to her. “Oh,” he says again. “I didn’t mean–”

“I know.”

“You don’t have to–”

“I know,” she says. And she does. Because Joe’s a sweet guy—the kind who has wine waiting for his date before she even gets there. And maybe she’s just happy on the drinks or it’s that damn twinkle in his eye again, but for some reason she says, “But my place is three blocks from here, and you don’t have money for a cab.”

And he says, “Matt’s not expecting me at home to night.”

“So what do you say, Joe?” she says. “It’s not perfect, but…”

“It’s something,” he breathes.

And that’s when he kisses her, right on that terrace without any stars. It’s a scene that’s almost perfect— _could_ be perfect, if only the clouds would clear or the city’s lights would dim. If only the two people on a date actually stood a chance at love. If only a lot of things were aligned in the same way they are for Rachel and Matt.

But they’re not Rachel and Matt. They’re never going to be Rachel and Matt.

So Joe and Abby it is.


End file.
